Jain Journal 1972 04

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 42

APRIL, 1972
The Subodhika Tikā on the Kalpa Sutra says that the minister of the ninth Nanda was a certain Sagadala who was a Jaina, and who was the father of a famous Jaina Acarya Sthulabhadra. As the ministership of the Nandas was awarded in a hereditary fashion, Sthulabhadra's brother succeeded his father, while Sthulabhadra joined the Jaina order of monks.
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The Kharavela inscription says that that king in the twelfth year of his reign brought back the image of the Kalinga Jina stolen away by the Nandaraja from Kalinga to Magadha. This shows that not only the Nandas were devotees of Jainism, but that at their time Jainism was somewhat an established religion of a community in Kalinga.
This fact gets corroboration even in the Jaina texts. For instance, the Vyavahāra Vāşya says that there was a certain king Tosalika who was particular about guarding a Jina image in the city of Tosali. References to Mahavira's visit to Tosali are also to be met with.
That the Jaina monks had the trust of the king in them can be seen from the incident that Canakya exploited the services of a Jaina in the revolution which he so successfully brought about in the overthrow of the Nandas.
The Mauryas:
The successors of the Nandas were the mighty Mauryas who were perhaps the first emperors of a large part of India.
The origin of the Mauryas seems to have been with Candragupta, who according to the Jaina accounts, was the son of a peacock-tamer.
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According to the Jaina tradition, in the reign of the king Candragupta, Bhadrabahu predicted a famine of twelve years Magadha, and migrated to South India with a number of disciples, the chief among whom was Candragupta.
Scholars are not unanimous either regarding this tradition about Candragupta or that about Canakya who according to Jaina texts died a death by sanlekhaṇā or fast unto death. While some historians like Rice and Smith accept the tradition of Bhadrabahu's migration to the south with Candragupta, others like Fleet doubt it. An epigraph of c.600 A.D. at Sravana Belgola refers to the migration of Bhadrabahu